Ear Freckles

I was almost to my stop last week. The train had emptied out enough that I wasn't hip to hip with the person beside me. A man older than my dad walked past me down the aisle and then suddenly his head was back, and it was right next to my face.

"Do you know you have several freckles on the back of your ear?"

In my head, I was all, "Ummm... huh.... whaaa..." but I said, "Yes."

"They appear to be pre-cancerous sun-exposure freckles," he said. "People always forget to put sunscreen on their earlobes. You should have them looked at."

"I have," I said, lying.

How did he even see the back of my ear lobe when he'd been walking towards me? Creepy. I guess the freckles, which I was in fact aware of, are that noticeable.

I like my ear freckles because they are weird. I am not a freckled person. I have a few teeny ones on my arms, one on my knee. Three itsy bitsy faint ones like Orion's belt on my chest. That's about it. But my left ear lobe is almost covered by four large freckles.

"Good," he said, relieved that I was on top of my potential for melanoma. He said, "Keep an eye on them."

"Okay," I said, feeling very invaded.

What is with people? I would never interrogate a stranger about their ear freckles. Although I want to warn this one woman about the damage she's doing to her ears by listening to her iPod so loud that I can hear it from three seats up. But the sound of her music is invasive to me, which sort of opens an invitation to make a comment whereas ear freckles are minding their own business and hidden.

Was he someone who has lost a loved one to skin cancer and is now trying to save others, or was he just a dermatologist trying to drum up business?